Transparency and Open Government Newsletter

This has been tweeted and retweeted a number of times in the past hour, and just in case you missed it, I thought I'd pass it on. The CitizenServices.Gov site (which you may know as USASerivces.Gov, the Citizen Services Network E-Government initiative led by the General Services Administration’s Office of Citizen Services) has launched its new newsletter -- and it's a must-read for community indicators practitioners.

The Transparency and Open Government Newsletter (PDF) includes a number of items of interest in its 40 pages:

President Obama's Memorandum for the Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies

A section on Democratization of Data including articles such as:

• Unfettered Access to Data Can Transform Government?
• Technology as a Game-Changer
• Information as a Public Good
• Citizen Views On Transparency

Another section on Practices at Work in Government, including:

• Texas Websites Improve Accountability
• Georgia’s Commitment to Customer Service and Good Government
• Transparency 2.0
• Measuring E-Government 2.0
• E-discovery, Transparency and Culture Change
• AGA Opens the Doors of Government to the Citizens

And much more, including:

• Through a Glass, Darkly. What do we mean by transparency in government?
• Transparency in Government Begins Outside
• The Collaborative Government: Beyond Transparency in Government
• Get Ready for Wiki-Government
• Building the Digital Public Square
• Open Government Serves Citizens

Whether you use government data in a government performance benchmarking report, community indicators system, or some of both, you need to be paying attention to how the rules are changing in how data flow from the government to you. The same models for data distribution at the federal level, including the assumption that the information is public unless otherwise restricted (instead of the assumption that information is restricted unless pronounced available), can be encouraged at the state and local levels.

Read the newsletter and let me know what you think.